Of Goddesses and Heroes

It's been a little while since I did any real world building, so I thought I'd come to you for a few ideas.

While in my story I've relegated a few terms from Norse and Judeo-Christian mythology, many of which are clingy placeholders that I've grown attached to (Einherjar and Sephiroth for instance), and I have sort of overarching mythos, many of the individual areas don't have their own pantheons and the like.

In other words, I need religions. I want it so that the religions all share the same gods, but not the same perceptions of those gods. For example, Zeus and Jupiter. Or an even better example would be the similarities between the Norse, Greek, and Egyptian pantheons.

I guess I should tell you what I have so far.
The creator goddess is Elyon, who woke to a dead world and more or less sang it to life. Yes I did kind of steal this, but he stole it first.

There are also the Old Gods, or Titans, who are something along the lines of Alien deities that take the Villain by Default roles, but are sealed away forever (or until I decide that my fictional people are to complacent and need the looming shadow of death. Those are Bahamut, Ziz, and Leviathan. They are the parents of Behemoths, wyvern, and wyrms respectively, and take a place like Bast does for cats. I've actually got a sort of Myth idea where Behemoths (sort of an elephant without the trunk) stay away from mice (much like elephants do) because the god of mice sealed Bahamut away. That would place him in the Goku and Raven mold, as a trickster)

And finally are the Gods proper, who run the religions more or less. Shying away from the Crystal Dragon religions, no one actually worships Elyon, though swearing by her name isn't uncommon. Though because of the way I've set things up there is a bit of Henotheism. The Gods of the two pantheons (two pantheons that are separate but together, like the Aesir and the Vanir) are the average Gods, whereas the Titans and Elyon are like, well, the Titans and such, the Aesir and the Vanir are the people who everyone cares about. While none of them are omnipotent, omnipresent, or omniscient, they are still forces of nature with personalities.

Also because I don't know much about other religions, it's hard to think outside the Crystal Dragon Jesus when that's all you've known.

Well you certainly look like you've been doing a whole lot of work in this subject. Mythology always was fun ah, good times.

I do feel the need to question why you would equate Bahamut to the Ziz and Levaithan and then make them the parents of Behemoth. If your taking your ques from real life myth it makes no sense since Behemoth, Ziz, and Leviathan represent the ancient Hebrew elements of Wind, Water, and Earth together and Bahamut is from a seperate mythology and despite it being equated to an Arabian version to Behemoth, is actually much more in line with Leviathan (They're both giant fish and they reside in the waters underneath the earth so its like you've got two monsters on the same level who are practical clones of eachother in mythological sense). Just my pickiness coming in there XD. Your world do it how you like !

I like the Aesir/Vanir idea. The Norse myths are some of the coolest and the funest to read about in terms of ancient mythologies. The whole war of the gods idea is a pretty cool concept for any fantasy tale.

Well, Bahamut is a giant elephant thing because I needed a Titan of Earth and Behemoth doesn't have the same ring as Bahamut. Though Ziz and Leviathan aren't exactly the same either. One's the only actual dragon in my story, and the other's more like the Jormungander.

Those three beasts are the most developed of my Gods, Hell, they even shaped the land. Look and take a guess at where they fell to the planet.

But they don't actually have anything to do with any of the story ideas I have at the moment. Except for the Rat's tale. And that came from watching Fruits Basket, and seeing an episode of Mythbusters with elephants and mice. Inspiration comes in the most unlikely of places.

I did at one time have a goddess of the cherry trees who was shaping up to be the dark elf patron deity, something along the lines of Amaterasu. And then of course, there's Samael and Azrael, who I'm not even sure to characterize as gods, since they aren't part of either pantheon and don't like in the same realm.

Just wanted to say that this subject is very interesting to me, but I can't really participate because I have no idea who half of the dieties are. Thank you.

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Well, There aren't any Gods that have been created besides the ones I've mentioned. Which is mostly the problem. I'm sort of going for a Patron God of each country though, plus the various others such as thunder and war and the forge.

The countries are all cultural analogues to Japan/Korea (yeah, I know), China, Germany/England, Iberia/France, Ireland/Wales, Araby/Egypt, and Old World America/Iceland. Only with different cultures, religions, and half of them being some sort of elf thing. Mostly just architecture, clothing style, and maybe social structure. So pretty much exactly the same, only different.

Japan and Korea have what could best be put politically as a dislike for each other. That is what the (yeah, I know) is about.

Sywo said:

How big are those craters? I'm surprised your world didn't go into mass extiction! Anyway...

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well, this was before the people were there. Though there are huge mountain ranges that have been pushed up around them. As opposed to Elyon, who came to the planet and landed relatively harmlessly, creating the valley on the other side of the continent from the hole where Bahamut landed. Though, since they landed first and she's the one who created the life, whether they wiped it out or not doesn't matter. Unless... hmmm... perhaps there was life before the Titans... Nah, then there'd be Lost Technology, and I hate that stuff.

Who said that lost technology had to be lost? Sure there could be rumors about ancient, powerful technology but what if any technology in your world is actually based of ancient designs from before the titans?

*Off Topic* Do you reckon its worth making a worldbuilding blog, or should I just stick to the public forums and good old pen and paper?